When Vaclav first told me about what it is that the good people of Laupen [village close to Bern] traditionally do on the new year’s eve, I certainly thought he was pulling my leg. Or, at the very least, exaggerating a tiny bit. Well this NYE we went there and I saw the whole thing for myself. Turns out it’s all true. =D

First, there’s the parade. Starting from the castle, people in some interesting costumes come down the alleys of Laupen. Some in white cone hats and witchy outfits, some in these furry black costumes with some amazingly freaky wooden witch masks and well, the best bit was the “balloon skirt”s. Or at least it looked like they were wearing balloons around their waists at the first glance. But of course these are no ordinary balloons… they’re made out of cow bladder of all things. xD And they carry these long impressive broomsticks.

The procession stops in a couple of squares, and the leader of the group says some new year’s prayers, hoping for good fortune and for evil spirits to leave the village alone. And then of course the witches push into the crowd with their brooms causing a bit of excitement, as the bells ring. This procedure repeats for a few rounds, and then after the last round suddenly the balloon people start chasing after women/girls in the crowd. And well…. what comes next is the really good bit. The targeted poor soul receives a good beating with the cow bladder balloons! Of course these balloons make quite the popping sound when landing on one’s body, so what you hear is truly scary. Girls running around screaming their guts out and then you hear BAM BAM BAM BOOOOOM…. 5 of these balloon people hitting one poor girl with these balloons… and they mean business. And why? Well of course to drive the evil spirits away! All of this is naturally for the girl’s benefit! xD

So it looks and sounds, well, scary. But of course once you do get hit by one of these balloons [yup, did happen], you realize while they could probably leave a red spot [I mean… cow bladder… the things are like leather], they sound a lot scarier than they feel. Honestly they don’t really hurt… but they do make a loud popping sound that make you feel like… well… no evil spirits would even look at you for the whole of the next year.

Unfortunately my pictures of the event are really bad [purely documentary] since I took only my smaller camera with me [trying to be safe], no tripod, no real possibility of standing still for a moment and well, it was fairly dark. But at least you can see the balloons! Here’s the album.